The Thief
by exDerelict
Summary: Inspired by The Queen's Thief series, this onehsot reimagines the classical world in which a young thief is infatuated with a isolated queen of an enemy country. {Elsanna AU}


The Thief

She squeezed through the squared narrow water drain at the base of the stone wall, scrapping her chin on the water-weathered surface as she burrowed through. Silently uttering a prayer to the God of Thieves, the young thief hoped she would not find guards waiting for her on the other side of the wall.

"_You are too reckless, Anathene. Arendaelus is far more calculating that you give her credit,"_ her cousin, the queen of Coronith, had warned. _"She'll catch you one of these days and have you hanged. The Gods be damned."_

But Anathene had not heeded her queen's warning. And year after year, she stole into the Arendaelus strongholds, never taking anything but always leaving some signature move behind, ensuring that Arendaelus knew the thief had come and gone.

She had been fascinated by the queen of Arendaelus since she first looked upon her. At a mere fifteen, the young queen had become the first ruling woman of Arendaelus following the death of her king, only months after their marriage. The queen had managed to hold her own with the help of the high priest against the power-starved barons that sought the throne, and she seized the power of the crown.

Anathene had not expected that.

Although quite the striking beauty with her moonlight colored braided tresses and perfectly chiseled face, the queen had been exceedingly meek at her wedding ceremony, as nervous as a lamb to the slaughter. She had been a minor princess of little consequence up until her father's death and her older brother's fatal poisoning. She bore the aura of a mouse, not a queen. And Anathene could not help her own curiosity toward the innocent lamb who had been fed to a palace of sharks bloodthirsty for her crown.

Just as Anathene had snuck her way into the palace for the wedding, the thief had also been there for the queen's coronation, hidden away within the many secret compartments of the palace walls. It was with great interest that the thief discovered that in the place of a sacrificial lamb now stood a queen with the roar of a lioness.

Arendaelus had grown into someone to be feared.

Without apparent remorse, the queen had condemned traitorous barons to public executions, and surrounded herself with well paid guards to shield her from her enemies. Her manner of dress was also more lavish and refined, her garbs styled after the goddess of war. It was hard to imagine that such a queen could have been so meek and powerless, as even the cold stare in her eyes had teeth.

But Anathene had stolen a look behind the queen's bite, and saw the brave boastings of a lonely woman-child. The secret of the queen's loneliness was Anathene's to keep. She was smitten, and the fact that Arendaelus and Coronith were rivaling countries did not stifle her interest.

Pulling herself out of the wall, the young thief was not careful, and she caught her dagger on the stone. The scrapping sound of metal quickly alerted another set of guards.

"There he is!"

Anathene held her breath when she heard the snarl of search dogs nearby. She had expected for her god to intervene as he had always done so, but the barking grew louder and the rustle of armor surrounded her, until a ghastly guard dog sniffed her out and latched it's teeth into her arm.

_God of Thieves, _she silently cried. _Why have you forgotten me?_

~X~

"It is the will of the Gods," Kristopholous declared severely, his voice resonating within the council chambers as he pointed to the stone carvings of the Great Ones on the walls; Gods and Goddesses chiseled as if they were emerging from the stone itself. "I'm sorry, my Queen, but one must not go against their will. Not even you."

The Queen of Arendaelus gazed up at the face of the most prominent stone carving, a face twisted by anger and demanding absolute obedience as most Gods were want to have. "Yes," she replied firmly, her face giving way to no flicker of emotion. "I must be cautious not to offend them."

Without another word, the Queen of Arendaelus walked away, moving with resolute and deliberate strides through the stone archway and into the adjourning throne room, her guardsmen following closely behind. General Kristopholous moved aside to let her pass, casting his eyes downward, unwilling to chance meeting her eyes.

"Come," she commanded, and Kristopholous took his place behind her as she led them across the marble floors.

Positioned near the center of the room at the base of the dais stood Weselthamus, the high priest of the Tauron temple in Arendaelus, and Prince Hanselem, the ambassador of the Disnyosus Empire to the south, who sat impatiently tapping his foot. The men clearly had been waiting for her return. The Southern Prince stood as soon as he saw the queen enter.

"Have you elected with the hanging?" The impetuous prince asked, not bothering with the formalities due to a queen. He offered his hand as was customary with his people, but the queen walked past him and up the dais where she took her seat on the throne.

"You must not be familiar with our customs," the prince concluded, laughing awkwardly as he attempted to mask his embarrassment in front of the guards and the high priest.

"I must not be," the queen replied with feigned sincerity.

"But surely, you have decided to have the thief publicly hanged," Hanselem went on more firmly, reasserting himself. "Anything less would be perceived as a sign of weakness."

"Weakness?" The queen echoed, clasping her hands calmly over her lap. "The situation is far more complicated than a simple address of weakness, Prince Hanselem. That boy isn't just any thief. He's the Thief of Coronith."

Confusion settled on the ambassador's face and he cocked his head toward the high priest hoping to find a more reasonable response from the clergyman.

"It's a title of high esteem, your grace," Westlethamus explained with an air of self importance. "A Thief serves only the God of Thieves, but they may align themselves with any kingdom. As a unnamed cousin to the queen of Coronith, the current Thief has chosen to ally himself with our greatest rival."

Hanselem laughed. "The God of Thieves? There's a god for criminals too? Just how many gods do you people serve?"

Westlethamus frowned.

"He is named as such for stealing immortality from the Gods and bringing balance to men," the queen replied. Then, snidely, she added, "Does monotheism entitle all its practitioners to ignorant superiority?"

It's was the ambassador's turn to frown.

"Bring him here," the queen commanded as she turned to her general. "I want to speak to this Thief of Coronith."

General Kristopholous quickly signaled two of the guards to leave and retrieve the prisoner.

"Prince Hanselem, I no longer require your presence. You may go."

A deeper set frown burrowed into the ambassador's forehead.

"I don't think that's wise, Elysia. You need me here."

The Queen paused stiffly, turning her head ever so slightly, just as her general reached for his sword, and unsheathed a finger's length of the blade.

"You may not address me so informally, Prince Hanselem," the queen acidicly replied. "Our kingdoms may be allies for now, and we may be obliged to yours, but this is not your kingdom. Your people in the South may see me as a queen of a small territory whose only value is the strategic peninsula near your borders, and perhaps you imagine us to be equals for that very reason, but you would be severely mistaken. Here, I _am_ Arendaelus. So long as I wear this crown, I am the body and blood of this kingdom, and you will address me as such."

The ambassador stiffened with vexation.

"My apologies, Queen Arendaelus," he replied, his jaw tight and all mirth vacant from his eyes.

"Now, leave me."

Begrudgingly, he left in the same direction the queen had entered. Upon exiting the throne room, his eyes met those of the young thief in passing as he was escorted in chains by two Arendaelian guardsmen. He found it quite curious that the boy was smaller than most his age, and alarmingly pretty.

As pleased as the queen was to see the ambassador go, she was equally displeased with the boy brought before her. The Thief of Coronith was not what she expected. He was surprisingly small. His figure more akin to a girl's or a prepubescent boy than a young man of nineteen. Dirtied and bleeding through the sleeve of his right arm, he hardly looked the part befitting any member of a royal family, let alone worthy of a God's blessing.

"His is injured," the queen remark, an undertone of accusation in her voice.

The general hesitated nervously before he spoke.

"He was tough one to catch, my queen. We had to make use of the hounds."

"Is that so?" Arendaelus looked upon the boy with interest, wondering how one so seemingly unimpressive could be resourceful enough to evade capture from imperial guards for as long as he did. The boy stared back at her, his large and pensive eyes lacking the defiance that was common among foreign prisoners in his position. Rather, he seemed to be studying her, his sharp blue eyes drawing in every detail of their encounter and storing it into memory.

_His eyes are quite striking_, she thought, taken aback by his arresting stare; they were almost luminescent, and sharply contrasted his dingy garbs. _Familiar too,_ _like brilliant oceanic spheres._

"It's you," she told him, a hint of surprise in her voice. "You were the boy in the crowd. The little boy with the flower."

The boy remained silent, but the startled look in his eyes was affirmation enough for Arendaelus.

"You gave me a yellow flower." Arendaelus went on. "Ten years ago today, on the day of my coronation." She tilted her head, and the light from the windows glinted off the red rubies in her delicate gold crown headband.

"A daffodil," the boy quietly replied.

"Yes," she nodded, feeling her initial resolve for the thief begin to fade. "Do you have a name, boy?"

"I have none, Your Majesty."

Arendaelus scowled, clearly annoyed.

"But you are the Thief of Coronith," she stated matter-of-factly. "A title inherited by blood, as surely as you bleed." The queen narrowed her eyes on the thief's torn and blood stained sleeve. "I have no doubt that you hold a respectable name."

Looking down, the boy replied, "A thief owns nothing."

The queen scoffed. "And yet you are so skilled at taking what's not yours."

"Offerings," the thief clarified. But it was clear from the tension in his face that he was growing fearful, and this pleased the queen. "I have always left them as offerings to the gods."

"You took the emerald necklace from the Baroness Meridia."

"She was obnoxious and prideful, showing it off to appease her own vanity. It was only fitting that it should be offered to the gods as penance for her fault of personality."

"And what would you have taken from my strongholds?"

"Your Majesty?"

"You've been stealing in and out of my strongholds for months now; moving things, leaving rooms just as I enter them. You wanted me to know it too. So what was it that you sought from me?"

The thief looked away, dropping his eyes to the floor, refusing to offer any response. Affronted by the boy's response, General Kristopholous took a step closer, grabbing at the hilt of his sword. "You will answer Her Majesty when she speaks to you," the general gowered.

The queen held her hand out, signaling her general to cease and stand back.

"I want you and your men to stand guard at the entrance," the queen ordered.

Hesitation briefly flickered in the general's eyes as he glanced at the shacked boy. "Be cautious, Your Majesty," Kristopholous uttered before leading his men to the other end of the throne room, beyond the reach of any prying ears.

"You're still not going to tell me your name?" the queen asked, slowly descending the dais until there was only a little more than two arm's length of distance between her and the boy. At this proximity, Arendaelus could clearly make out the freckles that dusted over the bridge of the thief's nose and across his cheek bones. His eyelashes were long and delicate, and his elfin face was surprisingly soft and feminine, showing no hints of masculine puberty.

"The magus of Thebes tells me that you are cousin to your queen. Perhaps you feel obligated by kinship to swear fealty to Coronith, but rumors have it that you are not favored by your cousins at court." The queen waited for a response, but none came.

"I could offer you land and a comfortable allowance," she went on. "You would have no need for anything. I could even arrange for an advantageous marriage with a daughter of one of my loyal barons. All in exchange for your fealty and service as Queen's Thief."

The thief swallowed nervously and resisted the temptation to take a step back.

"Arendaelus is a far richer country than Coronith," the thief finally spoke. "This throne room is more fanciful than any of Coronith Place's most lavish rooms." He looked up at the queen, his eyes watching her as one does a painting. "Much like yourself."

"Are you saying that I'm beautiful?" The queen smirked.

"Quite, Your Majesty." The boy licked his dry lips. "Arendaelus is beautiful beyond compare. Coronith is drab and unappealing with its parched lands and neglected roads," he paused. "But it's warm and vibrant. And Arendaelus is cold and empty of all substance."

A shadow fell over the queen's face. Whatever amusement had been there moments ago had completely evaporated.

"Is it typical for a Coronithian to reward kindness with insult?" The queen crossed her arms, and the boy considered responding on the side of caution.

"I don't think anyone would ever accuse you of being kind."

Arendaelus' pearl-colored cheeks flushed red.

_Do not offend the gods. _The queen clenched her jaw and fought against her inclination to call her guards and order the boy hanged by morning regardless of the wrath it would incur from his god, or how pretty she found his eyes to be.

"You're quite the curiosity, you know that? No man in your position would dare say such a thing," the queen noted, using as much restraint as she could muster. The boy could see right through her; he understood that she expected no response from him. It was for her sake alone that she said this, and yet he could not help his own fevered foolishness.

"Because they'd be too terrified," the thief replied, trembling as he nursed his wounded arm. "Afraid you'd have them flogged to death, and hung upside down on the castle walls."

Whether he had intended to or not, the thief succeeded in incensing Arendaelus' fury. He recognized the vindictive look in her eyes. After years of stealing in and out of the palace, the thief had learned to read all of her expressions, and the look she was giving him told him he had pushed too far.

_The gallows might be too merciful for me._

The thief was struck with a sudden lightheadedness; the color drained from his face and he realized that his wounded arm had soaked blood through his sleeve. What had initially been a few spots of blood was now dribbling and puddling on the marble floors. The queen uttered something. He could see her lips moving, her lovely brows twisting in vexation, but all he heard was the throbbing of his own heartbeat as he fell to his knees.

Arendaelus shouted for the guards, rushing forward and clasping onto the thief before he lost consciousness. General Kristopholous and his men barreled across the room, their weapons drawn.

"Get the doctor, now," she commanded.

Without waiting for orders from their general, two guards bowed, acknowledging their queen's request, and rushed out to fetch the royal physician. Then, as the men disappeared outside the throne room, Arendaelus turned her eyes to her general, seething at the man's incompetence.

"The next time you decide to have hunting hounds do your job for you, General, you'd better make certain to have their wounds addressed," the queen uttered sharply and slowly, even as she struggled to hold onto the limp boy in her grasp. "If this happens again, it'll be your blood spilled on the palace floors."

"Yes, my queen." The general bowed shamefacedly, tucking his sword back into its sheath. He took the unconscious boy from the queen's faltering arms and laid him down on the nearest council table.

"Now get the magus," the queen order. "He'll know what to do should this boy die, and we lose favor with the gods."

The general hesitated leaving her alone with a known enemy. He glanced over at the boy, watchful for any sign of waking, before leaving to retrieve the magus. Once he, too, was gone, Arendaelus exhaled sharply, as if she'd been holding her breath all along. Turning back to the boy, she pressed a tentative hand on his sweat-dampened forehead, and cursed softly under her breath.

"That's not very queen-like," the boy uttered weakly.

Startled, Arendaelus began to pull her hand away, but the boy was surprisingly spry, and he caught it before she could widen the distance between them. His eyes were barely slits as he struggled to open them, but they were no less brilliant and striking, enough to leave the queen breathless. Tugging her toward him, the thief raised his wounded hand to her face, gently cupping her cheek.

"Such a terrifying beauty," he remarked softly, his thumb caressing her cheek, smearing blood on her pale skin. "Like poisoned wine. So why is it that I still long to take a drink?"

Before Arendaelus could bring herself to think clearly and pull away, the thief leaned upward, narrowing the space between them, and slowly captured her lips in a long and drawn out kiss. Not once did it occur to her not to kiss back. There was a surprising softness to the thief's lips, not at all like a man's. The kiss was tender and sweet, but suffused with longing, and she wondered if some of that longing was hers.

"Men are sent to the gallows for doing far less than you have done," the queen whispered when they finally came apart. Stunned by what had just transpired, it was as if a spell had been cast and she could no longer differentiate between up and down.

"Is that so?" Leaning back as he began to fade from consciousness once again, the boy replied, "Then it's lucky for me that I'm not a man."

~X~

General Kristopholous approached the throne room, heavy with resignation, bracing himself for his queen's unforgiving retribution. In the days since the thief's capture, the cunning boy had eluded the general's best guards and escaped the palace walls, following an astonishingly quick recovery.

When they first learned that the thief would survive, a great sigh of relief had befallen the kingdom. After all, the kingdom of Arendaelus had narrowly escaped the wrath of a god. But Kristopholous could not imagine that the queen would take so kindly to another failure, especially one as grave as losing a key political prisoner.

_I'm a dead man._

Upon entering the throne room, the general had expected many things. Bad things. Most of which ended with him facing the sharpened blade of his executioner. Of all things, he had not expected to find the queen staring out the window, with a hand pressed wistfully against the glass, and the other tenderly nursing something he could not see. She was softer somehow; there was a easefulness about her that made her more girlish in his eyes. Her cheeks were rosier, lips redder, and her stature was lighter, like warm breezes that kissed the sandy beaches of the Arendaelus peninsula.

The queen was clearly not herself.

Arendaelus must have heard him approach because, as unlike herself as she had been, within a blink of an eye she was the Arendaelus he knew once more; hard and indifferent. The change was so stark and sudden that Kristopholous was compelled to believe he had imagined it all.

"Your report, general?"

He shook his head. "We were unable to recapture him, my queen. I take full responsibility."

A thoughtful look crossed her eyes, and she pressed the object she's been nursing in her hands against her lips. A flower, a bright yellow daffodil.

"I wouldn't worry too much," she replied, setting the flower on the window sill next to a folded note. "There will be other opportunities."

Kristopholous nodded, but didn't miss the subtle motion of the queen's hand as she slipped the folded piece of parchment inscribed to _Elysia_ into the hidden pocket of her dress.

Smirking, she said, "Our thief is the type who likes a good challenge, and so do I."

~X~

The God of Thieves frowned upon his sister-wife, crossing his arms over his chest and tapping the fingers of his right hand over his bicep.

"You have been playing with my toys," he accused his beloved.

Smiling softly, she pressed her hand against his cheek and leaned in.

"Toys should be shared," she whispered, kissing the corner of his mouth.

He closed his eyes and sighed.

"Not this human," he protested. "You are risking my thief."

The Goddess of Mischief pulled away and circled around him, wrapping her arms over his shoulders from behind. "Dearest husband, no harm will come to your precious thief. I promise you that much."

"Then why bother at all? Your temples are plentiful enough, or is it that you have already lost interest in all of your own subjects?"

"Not at all. It's quite the opposite. You see, one of my lost little lambs has come asking for the capture of your little thief -"

The God of Thieves groaned.

"...but I thought it might be more interesting for your thief to do the capturing instead. After all, those two have a curious affinity to the other."

He shook his head.

"You are too impetuous. Our sister will be displeased when she learns that you are playing at Goddess of Love as well."

Mischief smirked and nuzzled his neck.

"Love is far more interesting with a little fun and games, don't you agree?"

* * *

_Author's Note: I realize this is not the update most were hoping from me, however I've had this oneshot on the backburner collecting dust for half a year now and figured I'd complete and post it. Hope you enjoy! I'll be working on TOS next._


End file.
